


Like A Fish Out Of Water

by Demmora



Category: Dishonored
Genre: Corvo wants a bath, Crack Treated Somewhat Seriously, I cannot even with myself right now, The Outsider's other secret power is making bath bombs, crack with meta plot, everything is angst even when it's fluff, seriously, the Outsider is bored, this is based on a post on tumblr about bath bombs, what am I doing with my life, you'll have to speak up Corvo's wearing a towel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 02:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7149380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demmora/pseuds/Demmora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://whales-and-witchcraft.tumblr.com/post/145630451204/for-thebibliosphere-based-on-this-post">Whales-and-Witchcraft </a> on tumblr drew a picture based on a shitpost I made about the Outsider using a bathbomb to visit Corvo. It made me so happy I had to write something about it. (click the link to die laughing) So this is it. Corvo just wants to have some me time and chill in the bath. The Outsider is bored and wants someone to play with. Corvo is having none of it, and meta plot exposition and canon plot narrative ensues. And dropped towels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Fish Out Of Water

“Hello Corvo.”

Corvo stared at the black churning water for several more seconds, then sighed. “There are easier ways to get my attention.”

“You neglect your powers,” The Outsider rejoined, emerging from the inky waters to float just above it, looking no wetter than usual. “And you don’t visit my shrines.”

Corvo, who had been about to lean over the tub and pull the plug stilled, and looked up. “Are you…are you _sulking_?”

The Outsider seemed to lean forwards without actually moving, the whole world spinning on its axis to accommodate his whim. Corvo couldn’t ever remember being eye to eye with the eldritch god, he’d always been looking up…he could just make out a faint red glimmer in black and endless depths…

“No.”

Corvo laughed. “You are, you’re sulking.”

“I’m _bored.”_ The Outsider corrected, arms crossing over his chest a little more defensively than his usual elegant façade of indifference. “Nobody is _doing_ anything.”

“Well that’s hardly my fault, is it?” Corvo asked, a hand straying to the towel still wrapped around his waist, making sure it wasn’t about to unravel.

“Yes, _it is_.”                                                                                  

“What?”

“It is your fault. No one is doing anything because you eliminated them.” The Outsider, who had drifted around to turn his back to him, spun back around, like a hagfish sweeping through the surface to claim its prey. “Granny Rags is gone, Delilah is gone, Daud is off somewhere with sand teaching urchins to pick pockets…”

Corvo had tensed at the mention of Daud, tamping down on the rage that had surged through him at the memory of the assassin whose life he had spared, out of what…some righteous sense of forgiveness? Mercy? Or more likely, because Corvo had seen himself looking back from behind those weary eyes…all it took was one death, one death you could claim was righteous, and then where did you stop…

He blinked. “Delilah…Delilah who?”

“Doesn’t matter.” The Outsider waved a hand, “Daud technically took care of that, but he did it because of _you_. I have a task for you—”

“What—“ Corvo rounded on him raising a finger up under the floating god’s nose like a corporal he was chewing out for falling asleep at his post. “Now listen. You can’t say things like that then not explain it. Delilah who and Daud did what because of me?”

The Outsider rolled his eyes, and settled down until he was floating cross legged over the edge of the tub. The water had yet to stop bubbling, the black inky depths glittered like molten ice. Corvo had to only hope it wouldn’t stain the tub. He had enough explaining to do these days without trying to convince the maids he had come back from the city really, _really_ dirty.

“You know her, or you did. Delilah Copperspoon, the bakery maid.” His smile turned cruel when he saw the recognition on Corvo’s face, “Your dear Jessamine’s… _companion_. She liked to play with spells, didn’t she Corvo? Read palms and tea leaves, cast bones…it wasn’t you that said anything of course, you knew it was paltry parlor tricks…but you didn’t stop the whipping either. And neither did Jessamine.”

“She deserved it.” Corvo said hollowly, eyes lost in the distant past. “She used Jessamine’s blood…”

“A trifling offer. But well intended.” The Outsider sniffed, as though blood and bone were offered to him so often that the blood of a future Empress was just another drop in the ocean. It likely was.

Corvo could still remember when he’d found Jessamine crying in the stairwell, he’d been so frantic to find her he’d almost yelled at her for running off…and then he’d seen the open wound on her palm…

“I remember thinking I was going to put her over my knee and tan her hide so she couldn’t sit for a week.” Corvo rumbled hollowly, “Delilah I mean. Jessamine was so afraid you’d come for her…”

He looked up then, feeling the futility of it all washing over him, like high tide in a raging storm.

_Oh Beloved…_

“You marked her?” The Outsider merely shrugged in response. As though he too couldn’t hear the beating Heart. “For that spell?”

“Oh no. It was the painting that got my interest.” Eyes like that shouldn’t be able to smile, Corvo thought, it made the red burn brighter, “I’m not easily flattered, but she had a way with paint that could enrapture a soul. Literally, too, it would seem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Corvo asked, feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck. The room was still hot and filled with steam, but something about that statement had chilled him to the core.

“I mean she used the powers I gave her. Used them rather well in fact, became a little witch-queen all in her own right. But that wasn’t enough, she wanted the throne. She honestly believed she deserved it…Do you remember their game? Delilah would put on Jessamine’s clothes and Jessamine would wear her peasant blouse, and none of the nobles could tell them apart?”

Corvo swallowed. He did remember. He remembered all too well trying to explain to the mistress of the wardrobe why his charge was covered in soot and mud, while the bakery girl, a bastard daughter of a lady’s maid, was wearing royal silk. “Yes.”

“Hmm,” The humming sound was innocuous, a simple sound of agreement, but it made Corvo’s bones vibrate. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He tried not to think about it. “She thought she deserved it. In the end she had herself convinced she was the rightful heir to Dunwall...”

He made another sound, conveying his exasperation. Corvo knew what he was thinking. As though the mortal throne of a mortal realm could compare to the power he’d given her…he knew it because he felt it every time the mark on the back of his hand flared, and he felt the meaningless passage of time slip through his fingers like sand…

“The painting was really rather good, though.” The Outsider carried on, hollow eyes fixing on Corvo, “She caught Emily’s likeness perfectly.”

Corvo felt the world spin again, but this time tipped over by his own fear, terror pouring down the back of his spine like ice water trickling through his bones. “She did _what?”_

“Oh don’t worry.” The Outsider waved an effortlessly elegant hand, “Daud dealt with it. He spent months hunting her down, putting an end to her little _escapade._ It was quite clever what he did actually, I was surprised he still had it in him.”

“What did he do?” Corvo demanded, feeling sickness well up in his gut at knowing that he owed that man something…something more than his life…

“He followed her into the Void, switched her paintings mid ritual and she trapped herself in her own spell.” He smiled, a dreamy smile which belonged on the face of a courting youth, “Sometimes I can hear her screaming…”

The smile stayed in place as he turned his attention back to Corvo. “And you, when you showed up he honestly thought it was the end. But do you know what he was thinking when you had your sword arm raised? _At least I saved her…_ ”

It sounded like Daud, the words, or how he imagined Daud would sound if he were ever one to offer up a prayer of thanks.

He’d just wanted a bath, that’s all he’d wanted. He’d just wanted to sink into the warm water and go to bed feeling clean. He’d spent too many months feeling rotten and grimy, with the smell of salt water and decay in his nose. He’d just wanted a simple thing, not _this_ , not any of this…

“He truly was remorseful, you know.” The Outsider said into the silence, a delicate ringed hand dipping into the cooling waters of what had once been Corvo’s bath. He watched as it bubbled and boiled, the blackness clearing from the surface like an oil slick to leaving behind crystalline water that still didn’t quite look real.

_His hands do violence,_

“I know.” Corvo replied, leaning forward to test the water with his fingers, fascinated despite himself by the azure blue. “She told me.”

_But there’s another dream in his heart…_

He jerked around when he felt fingertips under his chin, though the Outsider sat perfectly still, hands clasped. He smiled widely then, revealing rows of jagged teeth that had no place in a human face. “Enjoy your bath, Corvo.”

And just like that, he was left alone. At least, he thought he was. Corvo eyed the water skeptically for another moment.

“Fuckit,” he shrugged, dropping his towel to the floor and stepped in.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for any typos, this was literally hammered out in about 20 minutes while riding high on cheap coffee and the smell of lush cosmetics in the air.


End file.
